Eyes With Pride
by notkamers
Summary: Everyone loves to remember their firsts; however, sometimes you need to have your lasts before you can understand your firsts. Join a graduating senior as she experiences her lasts and remembers her firsts...


Disclaimer: All from my head, although it's been done before. Just my spin...  
  
Eyes With Pride  
  
Two weeks that added up to hours practice. Football game after football game. All the preparations and memorizations. All the blisters and scratches. The bandaids and knee-braces. It all came down to this. Our final performance. My final performance of my high school career.  
  
I looked at my band, my eyes filling with tears once again. I certainly had been blessed with a wonderful group of teenagers to lead as Drum Major for two years straight. Yes, it had been challenging, but all good things need to be worked for. Besides, it was all worth it in the end.  
  
Over the past four years, I had grown close to these young men and women - the future of my, well, our band. I was proud to say that I had worked alongside them. I smiled as I thought back to the wonderful memories I had made with practically all of the members. Some memories floated to the surface. Late night Wal-mart runs. Laps around the field just for fun. Races to see who could run back to the high school in our uniforms first. Consequential truth or dare games on bus rides. They all made me wish for just one more year.  
  
In the stands I could hear my closest friend cheering for me. He had graduated the year prior and I had been privleged enough to stand beside him as a Drum Major my first year. He was definitely an inspiration and meant the world to me.  
  
I turned my attention back to the field, where the cheerleaders had finally left after their routine. This was it, the moment of truth. I looked to my left, then the right and blew two short blasts into my whistle, signaling the band to go to the ready.  
  
As the hisses filled the air on the field, I remembered what it was like to have been a freshman. I had felt so awkward in the big-bad high school with all these older people, jeering at me just because of my freshman status. It had always seemed so amazing, though, when band upperclassmen would greet me in the hallway. I felt as though I was part of a family and that I didn't need to worry so much that I was going to end up in a trash-can by the end of the day or with my head in a toilet. It was comforting, to tell you the truth.  
  
After I felt that the members were all ready, I gave the whistle command for attention. The, "Hut!" that followed echoed across the field and into the woods next to the 'stadium,' as my director called it. I smiled on the inside. That was the "Hut!" they had been working on since school started that year.  
  
I quickly thought back to my sophomore year in high school. It had been the best year of my high school career. I had become friends with people I would have never dreamed to have even thought of talking to my freshman year, and I now regret not being friends with those individuals earlier on. Also, in my sophomore year, I had my first real experience with teenage love and, eventually, heartbreak. I had fallen hard, and fell even harder at the end, even though the guy I had had my eye on and I never did become a couple. It had been for the better, though, since he had helped me get more involved in band and also grew to be the best friend a person could ask for (see paragrah four...).  
  
I gave four short blasts with my whistle, and the band stepped off together with their left feet, off to their first spot of the performance. The snare beat on the left steps, helping them keep their timing and steps together. I stopped at the front hash and stared at the visitor side.  
  
While my sophomore year had been perfect, my junior year was just the opposite. It had been the start of my independant streak - something my parents didn't seem to enjoy. It seemed that I had daily fights with my parents, involving them thinking that I was into things I would never dream of doing (for example: drugs, sex, and alcohol) and me not being able to stick up for myself without being reprimanded for it. The only people I felt that cared about me were my friends, who had allowed me to cry on their shoulders countless times throughout the year. Needless to say, my junior year was full of tears, stabs in the back, and umpteen rants about random things.  
  
The announcer's voice filled the field. He described our show, the grueling hours it took to memorize the music and movements, and eventually came to announce my name. Finally, he said, "Drum Major, is your band ready?"  
  
The summer before my senior year was one of the more enjoyable summers of my life. It was the summer after my two closest friends had graduated, so it was our last summer together, without college being in the way. It had been full of laughs and, by the end, enough tears to even out the laughter. We all knew how much we meant to each other and just how much we were going to miss each other. Although some friendships tend to suffer when the people are seperated by distance, ours seemed to have grown, rather than faded away - something, I might add, that I was very thankful for.  
  
I did an about face and saluted to the crowd. The crowd cheered and yelled and I resisted the urge to smile. I ordered my salute and walked off the field and onto the podium.  
  
After I had climbed the podium, I looked out at the band, who were all looking at me, waiting for my call. There was one thing that I saw was common with each person, though. They all had pride in their eyes. Pride in themselves, their peers, the band in the whole. I smiled at them, and began to clap my hands so they could show our town just what pride can do. 


End file.
